Monday, July 11, 2011

Now a night so fine makes us wanna stay, stay, stay, stay, stay for awhile.

I’m baaaaack……from one of the greatest weekends and trips, yet! I can’t even begin to describe the trip that I had. It was an amazing time, spent with great people! Today I’ll begin with Thursday/Friday of the trip.

Mer and I flew out Thursday afternoon and landed in Chicago around dinner time. We then met up with some of my high school friends for drinks and then Mer and I went out for a little bit. I always love getting to see my Wisco friends!

Friday morning began with a walk to get lunch and some essentials that we forgot. We then began the trek to lakeside for the concert. The train ride from the city wasn’t so bad but then we had to take a 3 mile bus ride to the actual concert location. I think they need to recalculate the distance because that was the longest 3 mile bus ride, ever! Nonetheless we got there, walked around, and got a spot to hear Amos Lee! I enjoyed hearing him again but thought he was better the first time I saw him. After Amos, we went and listened to Soja, a reggae band. They were AWESOME and one of my new favorites! It was then time to secure our spot for Ray Lamontagne and DMB!

Amos Lee

Ray Lamontagne

Ray Lamontagne was awesome! I will see him again in concert. Then it was time to wait for DMB to come on (we had about an hour 15 to do so). The area around us got PACKED! Everyone was squeezing in and pretty much on top of each other, waiting to see DMB. Mer and I were probably 10 rows back…the closest I have ever been at a DMB concert!

Finally, DMB came on stage and they rocked it. Dave is hilarious and when you can see him up close it's even better! I have always said that the Coldplay concert I went to two summers ago was the best concert ever, but I think this may have topped it. Seriously, it was AH MAY ZING. Then there was the encore in which Dave played a new song called “Sweet” which he said he wrote that morning about his son. Dave played the ukulele while he sang the song as well, which was awesome. I liked the song and hope that we’ll hear it again in the future. The encore also included “Stay or Leave”, “Jimi Thing”, “Shake Me Like a Monkey” and “Stay (Wasting Time)”. It was an awesome encore.

Mer and I left the concert all smiles…and then things changed a little.

Yes I had an amazing weekend and yes I would 100% do it again but there was a wee hiccup Friday night and that was leaving the concert. The location they picked for the concert is pretty much in the middle of nowhere. It used to be home to a steel mill which closed in 1992 and they have yet to do anything with the property. This meant that the DMB Caravan had to arrange for buses to come pick us up at the location and drive us to the train station. There were THOUSANDS of people, I mean about 30 to 40 thousand…which is very typical for a DMB concert. You get the majority of those people trying to leave at one time and it’s chaotic. At other DMB venues most people drive but for this location it was supposed to be “easier” to take public transportation. While I love love LOVE the city of Chicago, the CTA has some major work to do if they want to keep hosting events like this…especially at Lakeside. It was totally confusing on where to catch the bus (supposedly there was 27 of them…I think I saw 5, maybe). After 45 minutes we got on one and headed to the train station…again the bus ride seemed like the longest bus ride, ever.

We finally got back to our hotel and got over the transportation part and reflected on our day…which was a top one in my life so far.

More DMB pics and the rest of my weekend to come! Hittin' the WW hard today!